Originally published May 23 2015
Why won't Big Pharma ever cure cancer? They reaped $100 billion on cancer drugs in 2014
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Critics of modern medicine have been particularly cynical when it comes to how serious the industry and medical science are in finding cures for some diseases, especially those which generate billions of dollars in profits annually for drug makers.
In 2012 alone, for instance, Americans spent $325.8 billion on medications, and that was a year when medication spending declined for the first time in decades.
Spending on cold and flu medications runs into the billions each year; so, too, does spending on cancer -- both illnesses that some see as too lucrative to cure.
As reported by Michael Snyder of the website End of the American Dream, Americans have a 1-in-3 chance of contracting some form of cancer in their lifetime. For men, the odds are closer to 1-in-2.
Further, almost everyone in the country either knows someone who has had cancer or has died from the disease. Snyder notes that it was not always this way.
"Back in the 1940s, only one out of every sixteen Americans would develop cancer. Something has happened that has caused the cancer rate in this nation to absolutely explode, and it is being projected that cancer will soon surpass heart disease and become the leading cause of death in the United States," Snyder wrote.
$100 billion a year for cancer care alone
In all, the World Health Organization has estimated that approximately 14 million new cancer cases are diagnosed around the world every year; the number of new cases is expected to balloon by nearly 70 percent over the next 20 years.
"There are very few words in the English language that cause more fear than the word 'cancer', but despite billions spent on research and all of the technological progress we have made over the years this plague just continues to spiral wildly out of control," wrote Snyder. "Why is that?"
Because, he said, there is profit in the disease.
As reported by NBC News, spending for cancer drugs and treatment topped $100 billion in 2014 -- a "new milestone." In fact, year-over-year spending on cancer rose 10 percent last year from 2013.
The IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics said that spending five years earlier was just $75 billion. The institute further noted that, between 2010 and 2014, 45 new cancer medications hit the market.
As NBC News reported:
Two of those are so-called immunotherapies, a hot new class that harnesses the immune system to fight cancer. They are Opdivo from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Keytruda from Merck. Both are priced at $12,500 a month.
Indeed, the number of Americans getting cancer has continued to climb for a century. As reported by Health Impact News, at the beginning of the 20th century 1 person in 20 would get cancer. By the 1940s, that figure had risen to 1 in 16; by the 1970s, 1 in 10. And again, today, that figure is 1 in 3.
"Disease care system"
The health news site also reported:
The cancer industry is probably the most prosperous business in the United States. In 2014, there will be an estimated 1,665,540 new cancer cases diagnosed and 585,720 cancer deaths in the US. $6 billion of tax-payer funds are cycled through various federal agencies for cancer research, such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The NCI states that the medical costs of cancer care are $125 billion, with a projected 39 percent increase to $173 billion by 2020.
Snyder -- and millions of other Americans -- understand that companies must turn a profit if they are to remain viable, and that, unfortunately, includes Big Pharma as well. But forcing Americans to pay more than $12,000 a month for cancer treatment seems a bit extreme, to say the least.
What's more, for all the money we're spending on traditional cancer care, the results are sketchy, at best.
"If you are diagnosed with cancer in America today and you choose to trust the medical system with your treatment, you can say goodbye to your financial future," wrote Snyder. "Even if you have health insurance, you will probably end up flat broke one way or the other. Either you will survive and be flat broke, or you will die flat broke."
What's more, despite the expense of treatments, cancer survival rates are still not optimal. Today, the five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with cancer is just 65 percent. That means the remaining 35 percent of cancer patients won't survive past that time frame; for certain forms of cancer, the death rates are extremely high.
One of the biggest reasons for our cancer rates, notes Natural News editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, is the toxic foods we eat.
As Adams noted as long ago as 2005, one of the biggest causes of cancer in America is our increasingly toxic diet -- even in places of health.
"There is truly dangerous food being served right now in cafeterias at cancer centers, hospitals, clinics, and, of course, public schools, all across the country," Adams wrote, noting that the nation's healthcare system was more like a "disease care system."
Sources:
http://endoftheamericandream.com
http://www.cbsnews.com
http://www.cnn.com
http://www.who.int
http://www.nbcnews.com
http://healthimpactnews.com
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